Unnatural Selection
by kittsbud
Summary: Amy fancies a holiday, but a simple day trip turns to disaster when things get nasty on a long-dead alien world. "What do you call a Time Lord who can't regenerate?" It's upto The Doctor, Rory and Amy to find out. Story set from Rory's POV.
1. Chapter 1

**Unnatural Selection**

**_Author's Note_**

_I have no idea where this little story came from, but it asked to be put to page, so here it is. I haven't had chance to get it beta'd, so apologies for any glaring errors or typos, just in case!_

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The TARDIS was wheezing its usual spontaneous rhythm of rasp, cough, rasp cough as I lazed on the console chair.

I sometimes wonder how we all put up with its manic sounds. The noise is like an elderly patient with asthma and angina all rolled into one. And trust me, as a nurse, or ex-nurse, I should know.

Then again, to hear the Doctor talk, the TARDIS _was_ an old lady of very questionable lineage, so who am I to talk? (Although after the events on the asteroid in the bubble universe, she didn't look that old to me.)

Anyway, right now, said Doctor was dancing around the center console pulling at switches and squeezing oddly shaped buttons to the tune of Michael Jackson's _Black or White._

Thankfully, he didn't sing along, but his movements seemed oddly timed to the tempo of the music.

Amy hadn't appeared to notice his gyrations and was reading a small brochure that wouldn't have been out of place at Butlin's, or some other holiday escape.

Where my wife had acquired the booklet was anyone's guess, but given the deceptive size of the time machine we travelled in, it was a fair bet it had been on the craft somewhere just waiting to be perused.

In fact, knowing how the ship had a mind of its own, it may have even been placed for us to find. I've long since given up trying to fathom out how all the time stuff works and just go with the flow, so to speak. Even if said flow sometimes goes backwards, sideways and into another dimension!

Having been saved from death too many times to count by all the quirks of alternate realities and relative time and space, I'm not about to argue, though.

So, I moved up beside Amy, peering over her shoulder. "What are you finding so interesting?"

She flicked over the pamphlet to show me the pictures of strange alien vistas and worlds I would have once thought were purely out of a Sci Fi novel.

Shoving a bright pink bonbon in her mouth she gestured towards an image of a planet with azure skies, and even deeper cobalt clouds. "How come you never took me anywhere but Blackpool," she teased, her brogue accent strengthening the question.

I shrugged. It was always going to be impossible to compete with the Doctor with some things. I'd learned that lesson a long time ago on our wedding day.

It says here," Amy continued. "That Digamma 66 is considered by some as the _Marie Celeste_ of the Horsehead Nebula. Apparently, every lifeform vanished from the surface just over a hundred years ago, and it's been quarantined ever since. Although no one has ever figured out what happened there."

"See," I countered, "that's why I prefer Blackpool. Or maybe even Bournemouth."

Amy punched me playfully and I couldn't resist a small smile, but it was all I had time for before the Doctor suddenly appeared between us, his face screwed up in confusion, and was that worry?

"I'm sorry," he said matter-of-factly, "but did you just say Digamma 66 has no population? I mean, it must have. There were billions there last time I stopped by for a cup of tea and a fish finger."

Amy toyed with the pamphlet, trying to get it to fold back on the right page. After a little fiddling, she found the article and offered it up to the Time Lord. "It says right there they all went missing a hundred years or so ago. Looks like they're going to lift the quarantine now and allow sightseers in."

She ruffled the crumpled bag of bonbons on her lap and offered them up to the Doctor. He sniffed them unappreciatively and shook his head. "Always preferred jelly babies myself."

"Eww, you're not one of those weirdo's who bites the heads off, are you?"

The Doctor bristled, straightened his bowtie and huffed. "Might be. What's wrong with biting their heads off anyway…" He took a moment to realize he was being ribbed and then snatched the leaflet from Amy's hand, whirling around on the spot with it as he apparently read the tiny text.

"Can't be an empty planet. Not empty for the last hundred years," he told himself. "I should know about it. I _would_ know about it."

"Which means what?" I asked with a frown.

"Which means, I've been terribly remiss." The Doctor sighed, still whirling around the pulsing console as he deliberated. "And now I have to pay Digamma 66 a little visit before it becomes fair game to all you tourist lot."

Before either me or Amy could ask more, he'd bounded back over to the central controls and was examining unfathomable readouts on the TARDIS's monitor.

The thing had always reminded me of a telly my granddad had in his shed, but it seemed to work wonders and more on the little time ship with big aspirations.

As I watched him tap clumsily away at keys, I felt Amy brush up beside me, also watching him.

"I think we're about to get a holiday somewhere they don't serve fish and chips," she observed.

I nodded. But then, they rarely did serve fish and chips where the Doctor journeyed.

...

**_Digamma 66 Central Hub_**

**_Forty Seconds Later… _**

Tripping with the Doctor is never like a regular journey. Pick a star, any star, and if it would take a million light years to get there, you'll arrive a second after he's given the TARDIS its co-ordinates.

Landings are sometimes an acquired taste, and you don't always quite land where you're expecting, but it's never dull. I guess that was what first attracted Amy to the bonkers alien that we'd both become so close to over the last few months.

Anyway, as the time ship settled, it jolted twice and we found ourselves on the very empty world of Digamma 66.

The Doctor swiftly informed us that the planet had an atmosphere like earth's, so we'd be quite safe to walk around unaided, but as we exited the TARDIS door I could also see trepidation creeping into the lines on his face.

He could sometimes fool Amy with that youthful almost playful look of his, but I could often tell when he was worried – no, not just worried, this time he was genuinely _frightened._

"No poking around on your own, you two. At least not until I've checked everything is hunky dory here." He slid open the police box door and lithely snapped his sonic screwdriver from his tweed jacket pocket.

Tweed actually made him look like an old school teacher, or should I say nutty professor from bygone days, but I never told him so. That's what friends are for, right?

As we took our first steps on the lonely world, he was already busy scanning the sky, the ground, the buildings. Basically, _everything, _and Amy and I followed.

"So why are we here, exactly?" Amy asked, mirroring my own thoughts. "I mean, there's hardly an emergency, and there were way cooler places to visit on that brochure."

The Doctor ignored her and kept scanning, the tip of his sonic ebbing and pulsing ever few seconds. "Because this place shouldn't be empty. It should be writhing with workers." He pointed directly in front of us to a structure that appeared to be a massive factory. "They used to build the Flavius Four there. Still were building it not three weeks ago last I heard. And now this?" He raised a brow.

I peered intently at the depot expecting it to give up some miraculous answers, but all I saw was a disused building that was falling into disrepair.

Some of the upper windows had cracked or fallen out completely, and whatever weird substance it had been formed from had started to degenerate and crumble – possibly from the heat of the intense multiple suns that burned above us.

"I'm sorry. Flavius _what_?" The Doctor was always confusing, but today I was already getting a headache from the lack of logic that seemed to be going around.

"Flavius Four!" He crooned as if I should have known what it was. "It's the _in thing _in space cruiser! Think of it as a Ford Cortina of its day or something. Or maybe not…"

Amy put a hand on her hip and tossed her red locks over her shoulder and I knew she was getting annoyed with him. It tended to happen a lot, because the Doctor does have a tendency to overstate the obvious, or sometimes not so obvious.

The Doctor noticed too, and cleared his throat. "Yes, well, what I'm saying is,_ I know_ this place was still tossing out space ships at four hundred a week last month. And now look at it. It was the New Detroit of its age and now it's a dead planet."

"Someone's changed history," I concluded, finally seeing his point.

"Possibly," he mused, tapping the sonic against his lips. "But there's more to it than that. Come on, into the belly of the beast!"

With that he was off, clumsily traversing a set on steep concrete steps in his little black, totally out of date boots, into the warehouse structure.

I took Amy's hand and we followed, but already I was worried about what we would find. Or rather, what might find _us._

The Doctor hadn't changed course and come here lightly, and whatever was in that thick Time Lord skull under all that mad floppy hair, he wasn't ready to share.

That worried me even more.

...

Inside the factory or warehouse, or whatever it was, seemed fairly light and airy, and yet it took me awhile to actually digest why.

Long tubes illuminated the far reaches of the shop floor, and here and there machinery still whirred with signs of life.

_Should a building that hadn't been inhabited for a hundred years still have power? _

We strode past some kind of robotic arm, and it jolted spasmodically, a control panel to its right flashing and chirping like morning birdsong.

The whole effect sent a shiver down my back, and I sensed Amy quiver with the same sense of trepidation.

"Why are we even in here?" She whispered, eyes darting to and fro from machines to monitors, and back again.

I didn't really have an answer to give.

Only the Doctor did.

And he was already several feet away heading for a set of stairs.

The Time Lord bounded up them two, sometimes three sets at a time until he vanished inside a sliding hydraulic door. I expected the door to hiss closed, shutting us off from him, but it was just my imagination and we were able to walk through unhindered.

So much for my acute centurion sense of danger.

Beyond the metal entry was a much larger room that overlooked the whole floor below through a massive glass screen.

It was like a bridge from a _Star Trek_ ship, with desks, consoles and strange computers burbling in the background.

I felt Amy squeeze my hand and then relax as she watched the Doctor begin to tap on touch screen controls.

She trusted him explicitly.

We both did, but I still suddenly wished we were back in Leadworth together on a totally boring, normal earth day.

The Doctor must have sensed our thoughts because he looked up at Amy specifically and smiled that quirky grin of his. "Don't be nervous, Pond," he cooed. "Everything's under control."

And then the lights that we'd feared earlier abruptly extinguished.

They didn't sputter out, they didn't slowly dim, they just _died._

I snatched my hands out to try and reaffirm my grip on Amy, but she must have moved further away from me in the darkness.

I don't know why, but I feared calling her or the Doctor's name and I stammered instead, throat dry and voicebox in knots.

As quickly as the darkness had come, it receded, this time replaced by an abrupt flash of blinding red light.

I heard myself cry out as its intensity seared into my retinas, and then it was gone, once again replaced by the simple glare of the light tubes.

"A…amy," I spluttered. "Doctor..?"

"I'm okay." Amy was in front of me, picking herself up from a spot on the floor I could only assume she'd dived upon at the sign of any trouble. (You learn to dive a lot with the Doctor, but especially run.)

She looked at me, and then at the console where the Doctor had been working.

The Time Lord was still there, stooping over the screen with a frown so deep it was almost cavernous.

"Not_ quite_ what I was expecting," his very British tones grumbled. "But close enough."

"Expecting _what?"_

Trust Amy to actually _want_ to know what was about to chew us up and spit us out.

"We're about to have a little chat." the Doctor tipped his head towards the huge glass window that overlooked the floor below, and as they watched it fizzed with a kind of static, a blue discharge fading over its surface until the window became a massive viewscreen.

The screen oozed white and black pock-like emissions for a second, then snapped into what looked like a security office monitor.

Several segmented pictures of different parts of the facility came into view, and in each, a scene was unfolding.

One had a large, stocky man hammering at the walls around him. Another showed a young girl with a knife to the throat of another, younger girl.

None of the scenes were pretty.

One contained nothing but an airlock full of corpses, and I could only imagine how they had become trapped there.

The Doctor stared for a very long time at the screen, his face as angry as I'd ever seen him, and usually he controls his temper well.

"What do you want?" He snapped, edging around the desk to stand in front of the viewer like a ship's captain ready to go down with his vessel.

The screen danced, showing more horrific views and even with my nurse's training I felt sickened.

Eventually, the images faded to be replaced by static again.

"Rory, I don't get it," Amy was once more at my side, and I knew she too felt the Doctor's anxiety.

The last time he'd been like this had been when our daughter had been kidnapped at Demon's Run, and that situation hadn't ended well.

The viewer seemingly hissed at us for interrupting its communication with the Doctor, and then a deep voice, impossibly below human range blasted through the room loud enough to almost burst our eardrums.

We both cowered, cradling our ears as best we could from the vibrations with the palms of our hands. The Doctor didn't seem to be affected.

The voice had a strange, terrifying resonance, and Amy and I almost wanted to run, except we couldn't, because this concerned the Doctor.

"What do you call a Time Lord that cannot regenerate?" It chided.

The Doctor suddenly grinned as if he'd expected the question. "Oh really, I much prefer the knock knock jokes, but if you must…"

The voice, or whatever it was, appeared not to respect his answer and grew silent.

Amy stepped forwards, hand on hip again, accent flaring as the second man in her life was threatened. "We don't know. What do you call a Time Lord that can't regenerate?"

I expected the thing to laugh then, like some hysterical monster. Let's face it, that's the way it happens on the telly, but it didn't.

The room was quiet, as if the thing was weighing up whether to answer anyone but the Doctor himself.

The Doctor appeared to sense this too and after another fiddle with his bowtie stepped even closer to the screen. "Go on then," he taunted. "Give us your punchline. What do you call a Time Lord who can't regenerate?"

He knew the answer. We all did, but still the words sent ice through our hearts and veins.

Because somehow, some way, we knew the thing talking to us would make its words become reality.

"_A dead one…"_


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two**

The Doctor, to his credit, didn't let the thing get to him. I suppose he's seen and heard many threats in his time. Well, I know he has. Still, I don't think I would have been as composed.

He simply shrugged lightly. "Not the funniest thing I've heard this week. Got anything else you'd like to throw my way?"

The viewer showed us all the security footage again, or whatever it really was. I looked at Amy, and she glanced back and nodded. Whatever was going on, we were in the thick of it now.

After the viewer had rotated through all the images it wanted to show us, it changed again to something that looked like an old 1980's earth computer screen.

A simple black background with bright green letters and numerals, complete with square flashing cursor.

It appeared in some kind of list format.

**Sample species: Humanoid, sub-category Homo sapiens.**

**Aurix classification: 461626**

**Sample size: 10/10**

**Control species: Gallifreyan**

**Negative responses to date: 4/10 **

**Negative species response code: 288Y**

"What does that mean?" Amy asked as we both studied the information.

The Doctor rubbed at his chin, and I could see he was deliberating something. For the life of me, I couldn't shake the idea that he was choosing just how much to tell us.

But why hold back?

"It means we're being tested," he eventually enlightened. "Well, specifically, humans are being tested, and I appear to be the control subject in the whole thing."

"Tested for what?" I heard myself ask. "And what does it mean by negative responses four out of ten?"

The Time Lord sighed then. "I'm guessing the bodies we saw in the airlock are some of the negatives. Whatever it's doing, if you don't make the right choices…"

"You die, "Amy finished for him. "But _why_? And what was that whole Time Lord can't regenerate thing?"

The Doctor's youthful, if not always honest smile returned. "Oh, I don't think our friend here likes me very much, but as it needs a control subject, I'm along for the ride."

"The ride being we're two of the other test subjects, and we're now trapped here until we win or lose?" Suddenly I felt like a rat in a laboratory maze. I've had that feeling before travelling with the "tweeded one," but today I knew there was something different.

Something skewed about the whole situation.

"So we just have to play along? Run around this complex being good little monkeys or else?" Amy was angry again. God I love her when she's fiery like that, but don't ever tell her I told you so.

"I'm afraid it's not as simple as that." The Doctor sat on the edge of a desk and pointed his sonic at the keyboard in front of him, meddling with it for a few seconds.

I so don't get how he works that thing as it has very few controls, but seems to have thousands of uses.

Anyway, eventually he managed to release something and gained access to the screen still blinking at us like an old Commodore 64.

Bringing up a command to search for response code 288Y, we soon had our answer flickering in front of us.

**Negative species response code 288Y: Total species eradication by ****cancellation of genus specific timeline****. **

I swallowed so hard I thought my Adam's apple was going to pop out of my throat. "So if we fail the test, this thing basically erases us from existence?"

"Not just the humans here." The Doctor looked grim. "_Every_ human that has ever existed." He jumped down from his perch on the desk. "But we're not going to let that happen!" He clasped his hands together and rubbed them like he was about to tell a good story. "Right then! Let's go find the other test subjects that are still alive and sort out this mess!"

I was about to ask just how finding the others would help, because from the video footage, it looked like they had enough trouble of their own already.

But by the time I was standing open-mouthed like a fish out of water, the Doctor was halfway back down the steep stairwell with Amy in tow.

Don't you just feel like you're invisible when that happens?

I closed my mouth and quickly gave chase, catching them up as they reached the doorway we'd used to enter.

As we'd all expected, it was closed, and very much locked. Deadlocked in fact, so not even the Doctor's sonic could work its magic.

He didn't seem phased. "Hmmn…right or left, left or right," he considered, without even looking at me or Amy. "Right, I think!" And then he was off again, following the glow of his sonic as it played Sat Nav to three trapped souls.

The screwdriver led us to yet another hydraulic door. I didn't actually expect it to open, but whatever was testing us seemed to want us to see what was beyond and granted us access.

The Doctor took point, carefully stepping over a ledge at the bottom of the access frame to gain safe entry.

Amy was next, with me bringing up the rear.

Before us was the airlock from the security footage. As you don't usually get airlocks on a planet's surface, I could only guess that it opened into some test chamber for the ships that were built here.

Three bodies in total littered the metal walkway, and from a quick examination I speculated they'd been dead only a very short while.

"Why?" I stood over the corpses, looking down on a woman around Amy's age, but with much darker, brown hair. "Why come here and suddenly start killing? Why the test at all?" I shook my head.

"It hasn't just come here," the Doctor sighed. "I suspect its lay dormant until something has reactivated it. As for the test-" He looked dour again. "I think its gauging mankind's fitness to co-exist with other species in the Universe."

"And we just play along?" I was angry now, probably even more so than Amy. "Well what if we won't play its stupid game?"

"Then we'll all die anyway, just like these three…" The Time Lord jumped up, his gloom fading as quickly as it had arrived. "But not today, eh, Pond?" Then he was off, tapping at a port on the wall as it spewed out lines of binary, or some other more exotic coding.

Amy surveyed the bodies, but posed her questions to me rather than the cadavers. "So what killed them? I don't see any marks or injuries."

Truth be told, I wasn't sure, but as we were standing in an airlock of some variety it didn't take Einstein to figure lack of oxygen was a likely suspect.

"Maybe somebody opened the lock when there was negative atmosphere the other side?" I hazarded. "But if our computerized friend did it, what kind of test is that? It's simple murder."

The Doctor moved away from his tamperings and slipped his sonic away in his pocket. "Ah yes, but what if this wasn't done by our tormentor, but by another one of the sample group?"

"I still don't even get who these people are, or how they got here, let alone who the sample group is!" On a whim, Amy reached down and hurriedly sifted through the female body's pockets.

Finding something in an inside flap, she withdrew with an ID tag in hand. She read it aloud. "Cragmore Banking, Dundee?" Curious, she moved to another body and searched again.

This time she retrieved a wallet, complete with driving license and credit cards. "Francois DuCroix, Normandy…" Amy glared at the Doctor. "These people don't even belong here!"

"I know," he admitted. "The Aurix destroyed this planet's population and then lay in wait. The next life-form that arrived here, it simply began the whole cycle again. If there aren't enough test subjects available en situ, it simply brings them here."

"And pits them against one another, is that it?" Amy was horrified. "That's what this test is all about, isn't it? Putting a species into situations where they're likely to kill one another to escape, and if they do kill one another, then their whole kind are destroyed because they're deemed unfit. It's impossible to win against this thing!"

Amy was right, of course, but I was concerned with something else. "How did you know the thing is called the Aurix?" I asked the Doctor, my eyes narrowing.

He looked at me with that bemused smile of his that you can never read. "Rory, oh Rory, didn't you read the screen earlier? It said and I quote "Aurix classification: 461626." It doesn't take a genius to deduce it's possibly a title or name…although I do have my genius moments."

I wasn't swayed. "But that's not how you knew. You've been keeping something from me and Amy ever since we got here."

Was that a sparkle of amusement in his eye?

"I had my suspicions," the Time Lord admitted. "I've seen something like this before. Many, many,_ many_ years ago." He turned his back to us.

Avoidance again?

"And how did_ that_ end?" Amy snapped.

I saw his shoulders sag just a little. "Badly," he all but whispered. "_Very_ badly…"

The Time Lord still wasn't looking at us. Maybe because he couldn't bring himself to tell us everything. Could it be so bad?

"So where do we go from here?" I asked, wishing we could just go back to the TARDIS and restart this disaster of a day.

"Find the others that are left alive and try and stay that way. If it can't prove humans are bad, it might, just might be forced to let you all live."

"What are the odds," I snorted, forgetting just who I was talking to.

"About four hundred and twenty-one thousand to one, I'd say."

Remind me not to ask him _that _again…

"But if one of the others killed these three." Amy gestured to the bodies still at our feet. "Aren't we just handing ourselves to a murderer? I mean, how do we know out of the people left alive who is a killer?"

"Given humans nature to try and survive, I'd say they're _all_ potentially killers once the Aurix starts to manipulate their fears." The Doctor finally turned back to face us. "From the footage it showed us, we know there are, or rather were, two girls here somewhere, as well as that podgy chap who looked like he'd eaten far too many Narcassian fudge cakes."

I could see Amy mentally counting. "Besides Rory and me, that leaves two others we don't know about."

The Time Lord nodded. "Let's hope they're still alive too. Come on, time, or rather speed is of the essence."

He whirled around, retrieving his sonic from his jacket and twirling it in his fingers like a mini-baton. Reaching the port he'd meddled with earlier, he zapped it somehow and a section of wall seemed to simply fizzle away before us.

"Let's see Tommy Cooper do _that_!" The Doctor said smugly. "Although he does have a better fez than me…"

Thankfully, we hadn't seen said fez for awhile, and I was hoping it stayed that way. There are some eccentricities that are just a step too far, after all.

Anyway, the secret access in the wall took us into a much smaller, darker chamber, like a disused section of some space station you often see monsters in on the telly.

Monsters. Great. Why did I have to think about monsters?

The chamber was thankfully empty, but it seemed to be the central hub to a vast tunnel network I could only assume branched far below the factory.

The perfect place to do lots of running, hiding, screaming and everything else you tended to get into with the Doctor.

"Hmmn, lovely décor," the Time Lord mused as he looked around the metal studded walls.

"But how do we find anyone in this maze?" Amy grouched. "We could be here a year and never bump into anyone."

"We'll find them." the Doctor adjusted his sonic. "A few simple calculations and we can track any humanoid form at a distance of ten miles!" And to prove it, the screwdriver let out a high-pitched scream and began rhythmically flashing.

He waved it to and fro, getting a feel for which passageway it seemed to have a preference for. Eventually, he settled on the central one.

The darkest, longest, most scary one, naturally.

…

We'd walked about halfway down the tunnel's length, and I was finally starting to relax a little when someone screamed.

It seemed random, bizarre even, in the muted light, and at first none of us reacted.

The Doctor stopped, and I could tell he was letting his extra-acute hearting hone in on the sound.

"Female, I'd say. Half a mile in-" he licked his finger and held it up in the air. "_That_ direction."

Until he'd mentioned it, I hadn't even realized there was a "that direction." But now, as I squinted, I could just make out another tunnel to our left. It was terribly small, maybe a conduit for repairs or something, but we'd be able to go down it if we squeezed and pushed.

At the thought of another woman in trouble, Amy didn't give me, or the Doctor time to deliberate what dangers might lurk in the corrosion covered passage.

Within a heartbeat, she'd dived into the opening and was cramming her body past crevices I wouldn't have thought possible.

The Doctor cocked his head and raised both brows. "Pond to the rescue," he half-joked.

I scowled and leapt into the gloom after my other half, wondering why she could never think things through first. "Err…Amy, shouldn't we at least consider this might be a trick?"

"Nope." I heard the muffled response and ahead saw a flash of red hair as Amy vanished around a bend.

Two seconds later, I found the tunnel had come to an abrupt halt in another antechamber and Amy was standing against the metal wall, her arms folded.

And we were not alone.

Amy was staring angrily at a man dressed in trousers and a tousled white shirt. His clothes, and the way his hair was cut, complete with sideburns reminded me of something out of a history book, although I couldn't quite place what century, never mind decade.

"Get your kicks out of picking on defenceless women, do we?"

Ugh oh, if there was anything Amy hated, it was a chauvinist. How she knew the man before her was sexist so quickly was beyond me.

At least until he moved sideways just a touch.

Behind him, cowering on the floor was a young black girl of no more than ten, maybe even younger. From a bruise on her face I guessed she'd taken at least a couple of slaps recently.

The man sneered at Amy, ignoring me altogether. "Her kind should know better than disobey me. They should know their place."

The lilt to his voice instantly told me he was American, but not just any American, he was a southerner.

Suddenly the clothes, the hair, the accent, the girl, all made one complete picture.

This man wasn't just a bigot, he was a racist, and the girl was probably his slave.

The Aurix had no doubt dragged them both here just like the banker and the Frenchman back in the airlock.

And it was definitely turning the odds against humanity, picking out a darker time in our history to find fault with.

Right now, though, that was the least of our worries.

Mr Plantation Man had what appeared to be a rather large stick of dynamite in his right hand, and even though the fuse was dormant, if Amy taunted him too much, he looked like the kind who wouldn't think twice about lighting it and blowing us all to kingdom come.

Heaven only knew what he'd been doing with explosives just before he'd been snatched, and I suppose we never would find out.

However, it looked like we'd found our two missing test subjects.

"Hello. Now what have we here?" The Doctor wriggled his gawky body through the last of the tunnel and then switched off his sonic, its job done.

"Who are ya, and why ya'll brought me here?" The American appeared to be getting more and more agitated at our arrival.

"Now look my dear fellow, we haven't brought anybody here," the Doctor crooned. "We're just like you and we should work together to sort this mess out. Then we can_ all_ go home."

He was obviously ignoring the man's xenophobic tendencies, but then I suppose if you've travelled through time as much as he has, you get used to all sorts of bad things and how they had their place in history.

Not that it made it right, whatever year this nasty piece of work had come from.

"I ain't working with ya'll. I ain't working with _any_one." Mr Plantation backed up a bit and I saw him look at the dynamite.

"Err…Doctor," I stammered a bit, but then I tend to do that when I'm about to get blown up. "Maybe we should just let him be. I mean, hello…dynamite, explosion, _death_?"

The Doctor chuckled. "Oh Rory, our friend isn't going to blow anyone up. For starters he has nothing to light that thing with, do you? Didn't have Zippos back in his day, y'know!"

The man's lower lip quivered and a nerve ticked on his face. Turning tail without a word, he raced out of a second exit to the antechamber and disappeared into the darkness.

We could hear his receding footfalls on the hard metal decking for quite a few minutes after.

Once he'd gone, we all made a beeline for the girl cowering on the floor. "It's alright," I tried to soothe. "No one is going to hurt you anymore."

As I talked, I took her chin, gently turning her face so I could look at what the man had done. Her cheek was red and swollen. A monument to the atrocities mankind could commit. "My name's Rory," I offered. "And this is Amy and the Doctor."

The girl sniffed as if she wasn't sure whether to hug me or burst into tears. I suppose kindness from a white person in her day was a rarity.

Eventually, she bit her lip then offered. "I'm Martha, but everyone calls me Missy."

The Doctor leaned low so that his eyes were level with hers, and I can only assume he was hoping the wisdom, the knowledge and understanding in those eyes would transcend what the girl had been through and give her trust.

"Hello Missy," he smiled looking a gentle, innocent twenty-something instead of his nine centuries. "Can you tell us where you came from?"

"Alabama," she sniffled.

"And what year was it when you left?"

She looked confused as if we should know. "1855."

Amy sighed. "Wow, this Aurix thing means winning the game, or test or whatever."

"Stacking the deck." I nodded.

The Doctor huffed. "Yes, and I never was any good at poker. Always lose my chips before I get to cash them in. Pockets are a bit deep y'know." He wiggled a hand in one for effect.

"So now what? We're back to square one!" Amy tossed her hair over her shoulder. She was getting antsy again.

"No we're not. We go after our racist and we make him see sense. If we can get him to see Missy as another human being rather than something he owns, the cycle is broken and the Aurix loses. Play it at its own game, so to speak."

"And what are the odds of that happening?" _Oops, opened my big mouth with a stupid question again. _

The Doctor pondered awhile. "About two billion five-hundred thousand to one," he winced. "But it's the _trying_ that matters!"

Missy shook her head and it was obvious she was still terrified to speak out in our presence. "Master Charleston will never accept me as anything but a…" she seemed unclear what to actually call herself. "He won't talk to me as anything more than an animal."

The Doctor wasn't abashed. "Then we'll just have to make him! He's a great big bully, and I really, _really_ don't like bullies."

"You're forgetting he's the one with the dynamite," I reminded him.

"With nothing to light it," the Doctor dismissed. "It's not like he can go down to the local paper shop and buy a packet of crisps and a disposable lighter, is it?"

"No," I admitted, my mouth abruptly going dry. "But he could use one of those…"

The Doctor, Amy and Missy all turned to see what my slightly worried stare was focused on.

Master Charleston had decided he liked our company after all, and had quite stealthily returned to the chamber without us noticing.

Not only that, but in one hand he still grasped the dynamite.

And in the other, he held a flaming torch that looked like it may have come straight from the middle ages.

But then, in this twisted, off-kilter game, maybe it had.

"I don't know where ya found these slave-loving yanks, Missy," he choked, spittle flying from his mouth. "But now ya going to die with 'em."

As he deftly moved the licking flame towards the stick of explosive, I couldn't help but notice that he'd shortened the fuse to almost nothing.

In my brain, some little voice was saying "well, at least that means no more running down corridors to escape." My legs on the other hand, still wanted to live.

I saw the Doctor grab Missy and try to drag her to her feet and was surprised he hadn't tried to reason with the man, even now.

Charleston didn't waste any time considering and as I took hold of Amy and shoved her harshly into the tunnel we'd exited from, I saw the flash of the fuse igniting.

_How many seconds on it? _

I plunged into the darkness after Amy, willing her to move faster in the confines of the metallic warren.

There was a rattle behind me somewhere as Charleston tossed the stick and it clattered across the floor.

_How many seconds now? _

And then it hit me.

Why couldn't I hear the Doctor and Missy scrambling through the confines behind us?


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three**

I wanted to turn around, to clamber back and see what was happening, but my heart pounded in my chest, screaming at me to make sure Amy was safe.

The further away from the room Amy was when the explosion occurred, the better. I was her protector, her soulmate, and she had to come first.

I pushed at her to move faster, trying in the confines to look over my shoulder for sign of the Doctor or Missy.

Then the blast came.

I don't suppose it was as big as I'd expected, but the noise in the metallic catacombs was still almost deafening.

Something above me gave way with the pressure and I sensed a steel plate crumple and drop over my head. It sat there, swinging like a mad, rider-less trapeze.

Little pieces of rubble came with it, showing the tunnels had been originally constructed by burrowing into the planet a few levels.

It was weird really, because as we'd moved, I hadn't really felt that we'd being going down, but apparently, we had.

I coughed as dust began to spew around me and I could hear Amy screaming something at the top of her wee Scottish lungs. "Rory!"

_Ah, she does care…_

"Rory! _Doctor_!"

After the initial detonation my mind really hadn't been focusing, but at Amy's yelp, I twisted around in the passageway and began to carefully make my way back towards the antechamber.

Behind me, I could hear Amy doing much the same. There could be danger ahead, but our Time Lord friend was already in the thick of it along with the young black girl.

I cursed as I almost tripped on a segment of twisted metal and then finally squeezed back into the hollow.

It was smoky, but even through the smog I could see the dynamite had caused massive damage to the room.

In places, the ceiling had completely caved in, baring a carved out rock face beyond. Some of said rock face had also crumbled to the floor in a mass of natural and man-made debris.

"Doctor? Missy?" I coughed out as I accidentally inhaled too much of the acrid, possibly toxic atmosphere.

"Doctor!" Amy had followed me through and sounded terrified at what she was seeing.

Somewhere beneath the collapsed room must be a Time Lord and a little girl.

But were they alive or..?

I heard a small groan and knew it was a child's whimper, rather than an adult's.

My head snapped to my left, and as the dust cleared in front of my eyes, I finally spotted Missy. A large metal deck plate had pinned her to a wall and wreckage completely covered her legs.

My stomach lurched at the sight, and none of my nurse's training helped. It's always the worst thing, seeing a kid hurt.

"It's all right, we're coming! Just stay still!"

I don't think Missy even heard me, but someone did.

"Ya'll wont be goin' anywhere when I've done with ya."

Charleston had magically appeared and quickly positioned himself between me and the girl.

Why is it people like him always escape unscathed?

He crossed his arms in that classic Superman pose, and I knew he wasn't budging.

Truth be told, he was far stockier than me, and in a fight he definitely had the upper hand. Let's face it, I'm not exactly Rory "Balboa."

"Rory, be careful." Amy was close by, I could feel her breath on the back of my neck, warning me not to get myself killed.

Yeah, right, as if I was going to take any notice of that.

"Just move aside and let me look at her. I've had medical training." I tried to sound forceful, but sometimes I don't think Rory Williams can actually _do_ forceful, because it came out slightly less gallant than I'd intended.

Okay, so maybe it came out a bit pathetic, even, but I'm not a natural at all this hero stuff. I need "L" plates!

Charleston laughed.

"Rory, please…" Amy warned.

I feigned deafness at least to Amy, and carried on with my daring verbal assault. "Move aside, and I won't have to hurt you."

In my heart, I knew he wouldn't. I'm not a violent man, but some little parts of me still recall my days as a roman.

As a _fighter._

It's not something I'm proud of. Actually, it's not even something I really understand, but sometimes my bizarre past does come in handy.

Like now.

It was obvious Charleston thought I was bluffing, and so I had to seize the moment and use it.

Not giving him time to blink, or think, I launched a full frontal, hoping to take him down quickly.

For such a thickset individual, he could move, though, and easily out-manoeuvred me. Grabbing a jagged piece of deck plate, he swung it around like a cavalry blade, almost taking my head off.

I ducked, just managing to snatch up a sliver of metal of my own.

This was it then, an impromptu sword fight, one ex-roman against one ex-plantation foreman.

Boy, my life is weird.

Still, there wasn't much time to contemplate that, because my opponent didn't wait to take action.

The chunk of steel slashed at me viciously as he thrust and then parried – obviously a man who had used a sword before – perhaps in the army.

I blocked his moves, and returned similar ones of my own, careful not to trip on debris as I moved sideways, clutching my weapon.

I'm a healer, and I didn't want to hurt the man, despite what he'd just done. I just wanted to lure him.

Being an obvious women-hater, he didn't seem to think they were up to much on the combat front, and where Amy was concerned, that would be his undoing.

I held the ad lib hilt of my weapon tightly with both hands, careful to avoid the sharp, damaged steel cutting into my flesh. And when I was sure it was the right moment, I lunged, then dived, my body hitting the floor hard and then sliding with my sheer momentum.

He tried to follow, hopeful to smash my skull in with his viciously spiky blade, but in doing so he was forced to turn again, straight in front of a sneakily positioned Amy.

And Amy had selected a club of her own, albeit a slightly less dangerous one.

Amy brought down the smaller piece of debris on the back of the man's head and his legs buckled almost immediately. I saw his eyes roll up inside their lids and he was out for the count.

I exhaled, then scrambled to my feet, breathless.

Amy snorted when I checked on Charleston, but I can't help it. It must be my wonderful NHS training.

Or maybe not…

Anyway, satisfied that we hadn't killed anyone I took off my belt and handed it to Amy to tie up our racist friend. Then it was back to the debris, to Missy, and to the AWOL Time Lord.

I didn't have to look far to find the latter.

"Cool bit of swordplay there, Rory," the Doctor sniffed as he pushed a boulder off his torso along with several chunks of torn and serrated steel wall sections. "Very Errol Flynn. Without the moustache, obviously."

"Are you alright?"

"Bit dusty, but I'll wash." he patted his tweed, sending up a miasma of dust and metal particles. "Everyone else alright?"

I opened my mouth and then remembered Missy.

My heart began to pound in my chest again then.

Kid. Hurt. Bad.

"No," I rasped, then whirled around to search out where she'd fallen.

It sounds silly in such a small room, but after the explosion everything was skewed, disorientated.

Or maybe that was just my brain's reaction to it all.

I saw the debris on her first, and then those big brown, pleading eyes cutting into my soul.

"I'm cold," she whispered. "Momma must have forgot to light the fire-"

I kneeled down and could sense Amy and the Doctor both leaning over behind me.

"It's alright, you'll be warm soon," I promised – hating myself for telling the lie.

Missy nodded, but there were tears streaming down her cheeks.

She knew dammit.

As soon as I'd gotten close I'd known she was bleeding too badly, was trapped too badly….

My mind calculated the possibilities, the internal injuries, crushed bones, shock and more.

But I hadn't wanted to accept the reality of it.

I should have been able to help.

_To save her. _

Desperate, I looked over my shoulder to the Time Lord.

Sometimes he had tricks of his own. Medical miracles far beyond my measly talents. I thought of the potion he'd given Cleaves to remove her blood clot back at the acid plant and I clung to the thought.

"Can you do anything?" I almost begged.

The Doctor shook his head and I realized I'd been asking the impossible. He had no TARDIS, no tools to work any futuristic magic with, and even the sonic wasn't _that _fantastic.

Missy began to hack and I took her hand, not knowing what other comfort I could give. She smiled then, a thin, pain-ridden smile, but a smile nonetheless.

"It's alright," she whispered. "I'm going home now."

The little girl's head lolled and before I even felt at her neck I knew she was dead.

"Rory, it's not your fault." The Doctor was waiting for me to spin around. He looked at me with those wise, yet curious eyes of his. He was weighing up my next action and what his reaction should be to it.

The Time Lord knew I was angry – but he was also a man that knew just how far anger could make you fall. "It's alright to be mad." He said softly.

I looked over to Amy and could see her eyes welling up. We hadn't known Missy, not really, but watching a child die like that was just so senseless.

So wrong in any time or dimension.

"It's not alright," I snapped. "We shouldn't be trying to join up with the other test subjects, we should be trying to find this Aurix thing and stop it once and for all. Just why are we running?"

I stared at The Doctor and realized for the first time that he was actually biting his nails, his eyes avoiding contact with my own. Was there something that actually worried his kind that much?

He finally became conscious of my gaze. "Because in a fair fight, we _can't _win."

Amy rounded on him, obviously surprised at his attitude. "Then who says we have to play fair? This thing hasn't since we got here and I'm getting sick of it."

I picked up the metal weapon I'd dropped and tested the weight of it in my hand, swinging it in front of me to slice through the air. "If I have to die, then I don't want it to be running away from this thing, I want it to be fighting it."

I was mad, madder than I've been in a very long time.

"How do we find it?" Amy demanded, those red locks flying as she tossed then back with her hand.

"The Aurix can't be killed in a conventional way. We can't even find it in a conventional way," The Doctor sighed. "It's everywhere. All around us and beyond. There isn't an inch of this planet that it doesn't control." He looked at me specifically then. "There is perhaps one way."

"And?" I asked impatiently.

"It's in the computers, we know that. I found traces of its nucleus in the wall panel back in the airlock. If I could gain access again to at least two more ports I might be able to triangulate where its core is hiding in the planetary network."

"Like when they do a mobile phone trace on police shows?" I asked, feeling smug that I'd actually understood some of his technobabble.

"Sort of, in a twisted, none-scientific kind of way." He nodded, then changed his mind and shook his head. "Although, actually no, it's nothing like that. But if it helps…"

Amy looked at me. "Can we just find him some more of these port things to play with, and fast."

I nodded and then kneeled back down to Missy's body. It wasn't fair we had to leave her trapped under the rubble. It wasn't fair she'd died on a world she didn't understand.

I took off my jacket and covered her. She deserved that much.

When I moved to leave the chamber, I found Amy staring down at the still unconscious Charleston. "What do we do about him," she asked.

At first, I didn't want to answer, for fear what my answer might actually be.

Then I glanced at the Doctor as he bounded down another tunnel exit, vanishing into its gloom.

What would a good man do? What would _he _do?

"Nothing," I answered. "We do nothing with him."

And with that I turned to follow the Time Lord, taking Amy's hand to make sure she was safely in tow.

…

As we moved through passageway after passageway, I began to truly appreciate the size of the structure we'd found ourselves in.

While the surface part of the factory was large, what lay beneath the planet's surface was positively massive.

Finding a section that actually had another control port, though, was proving to be a difficult task.

After about an hour of wandering aimlessly, we came to another chamber with three more smaller exits.

"Maybe we should split up, take a tunnel each," Amy suggested innocently.

"I don't think we should separate." It's not that I'm a firm believer in safety in numbers or anything, but I didn't want Amy away from my side.

She can look after herself, I know that, but sometimes that just isn't enough.

"Oh Rory don't be such a wuss!" Amy dived into the middle tunnel before I could argue, and I suppose she thought the Doctor would talk me into the whole splitting up thing.

It was weird really, but he didn't actually say anything as I sped into the tunnel after her.

He didn't even follow.

"Amy, we really should stick together. We shouldn't split up from the Doctor," I pleaded as I rushed to catch her up.

Looking back, I probably did sound like a right wuss, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that something was askew or "off" about everything that was happening.

I was so busy telling myself things were not quite right for the next ten minutes that I almost didn't notice Amy had stopped about a hundred yards in front of me.

Well, it was dark down there with just the light from my mobile's screen to illuminate the way!

"Hey, can you not tread on me with quite so much gusto next time?" Amy growled as I struggled to see why she'd stopped.

"Sorry," I apologized.

"Yeah well, I found what we were looking for. Almost tore right on past it, but then it started beeping and flashing." Amy tapped the wall and I could see with the aid of my trusty phone that there was indeed a small port there.

It wasn't beeping, flashing, or even showing any signs of life anymore, however.

"It looks deactivated to me. Maybe this Aurix thing knows what we're trying to do and is shutting them down as we get to them?" I hazarded.

Amy sniffed. "Well, it hasn't figured on the Doctor. He'll know how to get into this thing, active or not." She suddenly realized he hadn't come along with me. "You should go get him before he strays too far down one of the other tunnels. You know what he's like."

"What about you?"

I already knew the answer, but I had to hope she'd come with me, just a little.

"I'm going to look around some more down here. This is the first port we've found in ages. Might be significant."

I groaned. "Might also be dangerous."

She threw a mock punch that hit harder than I'd expected. "Ouch!"

"Will you just go get him?"

I rolled my eyes but did as I was told. Sometimes it's quicker and easier that way.

And to be fair, there didn't seem to be any immediate danger – not unless you count being trapped on a planet with a raving mad entity called an Aurix that was intent on exterminating the entire human race after it had played a maniacal game of cat and mouse with a bunch of test subjects, pushing them to the point of madness and beyond.

Yep, no immediate danger at all.

…

Going back down the tunnel seemed to take twice as long as it had following Amy. I don't know why, but my stomach was in knots, like someone was twisting and turning a knife in my innards. I don't usually get nerves – well, not that bad, but this was different.

As I entered the chamber with the three passageway entrances, I honestly expected to find the Doctor gone, exploring each and every nook and cranny he could find.

Instead, he was propped, one arm against a wall looking paler than I'd ever seen him. He looked at me knowingly, and I can only say in that moment he _knew_ I would come back alone – had counted on it.

I gestured my thumb back down the tunnel. "Amy…Amy found another port."

"I know," he said matter-of-factly. "I know where they all are. Have done since I examined the interface back in the airlock."

My brow furrowed. "I…I don't understand."

"I needed Amy shall we say, _distracted_ while I talked some sense into you. You're a level headed chap, you know I'm always right…"

"About what?"

"You have to leave me here, Rory. If I hadn't gotten you alone, she'd never listen to me, you know what's she's like."

I still wasn't getting it. "Leave you here? Why on earth would we do that?"

The Doctor smiled, but it wasn't his usual mischievous grin. It was an accepting smile. An acknowledgment of the inevitable. "Because any Time Lord who can't regenerate, sooner or later is going to become a dead one, just like the Aurix said."

He let his hand slip under his tweed jacket and it came away bloody.

Then I understood. "Back in the chamber, with Missy, you said you were alright but-"

"But Time Lords are very good liars, or would be, if there were any of us left. I do try and do my bit, though."

I didn't know what to say. What to do. "Maybe I can help," I stammered.

"Not unless you're very well versed in Gallifreyan physiology and have a fully equipped theatre stuffed down the next tunnel, you can't." He winced then.

Actually winced.

I've never thought of him as mortal before. He's been electrocuted in front of me, hit by lightning, you name it, and never been hurt. I couldn't get my head around it.

"How? I thought Time Lord's were..?"

"Stronger?" He answered for me. "We are, but we're not immortal. Especially not when some lovely alien lifeform takes away our ability to regenerate. You've got to say, it's a very creative creature."

Sometimes, I just don't understand his empathy for killer aliens – particularly when they're trying to kill us, but I let it slide, given he was probably bleeding to death inside as we chatted. "I won't leave you any more than Amy would. I'll carry you if I have to."

He'd been stooping a little, but he straightened up and his face grew almost angry at that. "Listen, there is a way out, a shuttle bay that opens and closes on a timer security system for incoming crews. I found it when I scanned the port and I don't think the Aurix even knows about it. It's certainly not closed it off. If you go now, take Amy, you can get there, but not with me in tow. I've been heading us towards it, but… "

It was too much for me to get my head around. "I _won't_ leave you here with that thing."

"Not even for Amy?"

Dammit, he knew my weakness. My one, blinding, un-escapable weakness.

"She won't go without you," I countered. "You should know that by now."

I should have known, you can't outwit, or out talk a Time Lord.

"Tell her I'm coming. Bringing up the rear, so to speak. Once you're inside the shuttle bay, it won't matter and you'll be safe."

"She'll kill me." My mouth was dry, the knife that had been twisting in my stomach was now pushing its way further and out my back. "I can't…"

I shouldn't be in this position.

Couldn't be.

The Doctor closed his eyes as if he was tired. "I think perhaps over nine hundred years is a long enough life for anyone. The things I've seen. The things I've done. Maybe it's just time that this Time Lord saw the light at the end of the Untempered Schism."

I didn't want to accept that. How could I agree that any time was a good time to die? I couldn't find any words to counter his, though. So I just stood, looking at him, hoping I was dreaming.

"I'll get to the wall port," He ignored my silence. "Try and buy you some time. Now _go_, Rory. Save Amy while you still can….follow the tunnel to its logical end and you'll find the bay. Access code is 461626."

I turned to look at the uninviting tunnel, then back at the Doctor, then back to the tunnel once again.

How could I be in this position?

_Save Amy while you still can… _

And then I made my choice.

"Okay, listen. I'm going to get Amy safely to the shuttle bay and then I'm coming back for you."

The Doctor straightened his bowtie and tried to stand tall, but he teetered a little. Then he plucked the sonic from his pocket like a six-shooter. "Go, I'll hold them off at the fort, or port, or…just _go_…"

I'm ashamed to say, I took his advice. I turned tale, guiltily running down the passageway, my feet clanging heavily on the metal footplates as my heart pounded against my ribcage.

I told myself if I ran faster, faster than he'd calculated I could save Amy, then return before the timer closed off the bay. I told myself he wasn't hurt as badly as he thought. Told myself I could save him.

But deep in my heart I knew none of it was true. The Doctor was far cleverer than me, and if this was his only option, it really must be _the_ only option.

Breathless, I caught up with Amy.

"So where is he?" She demanded.

"He's coming," I swallowed. God, I hated lying. "He says we're to continue on and forget the port. He thinks there's another way out."

Amy looked at me strangely then, but nodded. "Just as long as he's not doing anything stupid, because _he's always_ doing something stupid."

I wanted to tell her, tell her that he was doing something incredibly noble, but that made my guilt even worse.

I would go back for him. He wouldn't leave me, and I wasn't about to do the same.

_Save Amy while you still can… _

Just as soon as my wife was aboard a shuttle.

"Look, is that a light ahead?" As we'd talked I'd urged Amy on, pushing her faster and faster towards what I hoped was safety. Now as she saw a warm glow in the distance, I wondered just what I'd been directing her to.

It took us another fifteen minutes to actually reach the light, and as we exited the tunnel network, the world around us changed.

Two huge doors with metal frames and some kind of safety glass center stood before us, and beyond them an array of brilliant white lights and automated service robots.

The droids were happily tending several medium seized ships in the bay, apparently oblivious that this world now had no inhabitants to transport.

I took down a breath and then reached to the panel on the right door. Thankfully, it wasn't any kind of scanned entry, it just required the code the Doctor had given me, which I quickly punched in.

The doors waited, making me feel even sicker.

Was the Aurix onto us?

There was a jolt, a hiss, and then slowly the massive sheets of glass and metal separated.

"Why isn't he here yet?" Amy was staring worriedly at the tunnel entrance.

I didn't answer, I couldn't for fear of the crack in my voice giving me away.

Just a few more steps and she'd be inside the shuttle bay and I'd be able to go back for him.

I tugged at her arm, and mercifully she allowed me to half-drag her over the threshold into the flight deck, or whatever you call these things.

It didn't really hit me until that point, that we didn't actually know how to fly any of the craft around us – not unless the Doctor had been giving Amy secret flying lessons.

And if he hadn't, why would he even send us here?

Come to think of it, why hadn't he mentioned he'd discovered a possible escape before we'd gone running down numerous tunnels trying to find the other test subjects?

More questions flooded into my mind about the choices we'd been taking, but before I could have reservations about anything, a voice from behind us jarred me away from my thoughts.

"Hello there. It's about time you got here. I'd about given you up."

Amy and I locked onto the sound. A crisp British accent – definitely an expensive education at one of Merry Old's more exclusive Uni's.

But what was he doing here, on a world that was supposed to be dead?

The newcomer was climbing from the nearest shuttle as he spoke. A thin chap wearing some kind of futuristic uniform, and with a small holdall in his right hand.

If I'm honest, I couldn't shake the image of Julian Bashir from my head out of Star Trek's _Deep Space Nine_, but that was just ridiculous.

Maybe it was the accent?

"Who are you?" Amy was so much faster off the mark than me. I was still in shock that we'd found someone else alive, but she was already demanding answers.

"I'm the new doctor for shift number four," he answered innocently. "Just arrived on the late shuttle and been sitting here awhile wondering if I'd been forgotten. Where is everyone? All I've seen so far are maintenance robots."

Doctor? A doctor that just happened to look like and sound like Julian Bashir? Was my imagination running wild, triggered by the Aurix's manipulations?

Or was this all just a little too much?

I grabbed Amy's hand and took a step backwards towards the two double doors, hoping she got the message.

If the Aurix had killed everyone save the test subjects, then just who was this man, and how could he be alive?

In my mind, there was only one answer.

The Aurix_ had_ known about this shuttle bay all along.

Which meant the man, or _thing_ now before us was in fact the enemy.

We were looking at some computer created form of the Aurix, and it had us right where it wanted us.

And I'd left the Doctor behind.

The only man who had any chance of stopping this thing was now bleeding in some dank corridor.

And it was all my fault.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part Four **

Amy ignored the tug of my hand. "What's gotten into you," she snapped. "And where's the Doctor."

"I'm right here, just told you so," the man or thing before us offered cheerily.

"Not you!" Amy and I both barked simultaneously.

"I meant _the_ Doctor," Amy continued. "He's a friend of ours." She peered at me then and I could tell she wanted answers about everything. From the look in her eyes, at that moment, she trusted the newcomer more than me.

Maybe she was right.

I gulped. There was no time for explanations, no time for theories. "I think he's the Aurix," I tried to whisper, hoping I wasn't heard. "He's not part of the test, so he should be dead, like everyone else."

"Everyone else is dead?" Julian, as I couldn't help but call him in my mind's eye, _had_ apparently heard. "Don't be ridiculous, they can't be! They were building the Flavius Four here not three weeks ago when I came for my interview!"

He seemed genuine. I'll give him that.

"Something happened." Amy responded carefully, weighing him up. "How did _you_ get in here?"

"The automated shuttle brought me in, like I told you. There was supposed to be some sort of meet and greet, but I've been sitting here awhile…"

Could he be telling the truth? Were my perceptions so skewed by the Aurix's manipulations that I was about to condemn an innocent?

Or maybe it was playing with me yet again?

And then it hit me.

If it wasn't the Aurix tormenting Amy and me one last time, the man before us might be the Doctor's saviour. The doors behind me hadn't timer locked yet – we could go back…

"Where did you say you'd come from?" I tried to be coy, but the question just sounded pathetic in the cold hard lights of the bay.

He didn't seem to notice. "Oh, I've been around a fair bit. Did some basic surgical training on Alfava Metraxis, a bit of research on extinct species on Planet One – just the place for dodos _that _is….and then I spent a bit of time at Demon's Run. Not much I could do for that lot – they tend to lop off one another's heads!"

Still he hadn't answered my question. In fact, he'd totally blathered his way out of it.

Almost.

But then there was something he'd said that had tickled a few of my grey cells. And let's face it, there aren't too many of those left after travelling with the Doctor.

"Extinct species?" I closed my eyes, praying my hunch would pan out. "Did you do any work on Gallifreyan physiology?" I held my breath. Only the next few seconds or minutes would determine our fate.

"Of course!" He smiled breezily as if it was the most natural subject in the world to study. "Resilient lot, the old Time Lords. Hard to get rid of, but they do have their Achille's heel or I should say, did have."

I shot forwards and grabbed the newcomer's hand, yanking him to the still open bay doors. "Great!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. "Because we're going back to save a friend of mine!"

I heard the stranger's voice change slightly, not just his timbre, but his accent. "Ah, I was rather hoping you'd say that."

And then every single light in the shuttle bay went out.

I blinked, but in the total darkness it made no difference if my eyes were open or closed. I realized there was something missing, and then grasped that the clutter and whir of the robots around us had vanished.

Total silence.

"Rory?" I could hear not fear, but total confusion in Amy's voice.

I let go of the stranger's hand I was clutching and reached out instinctively for my wife. "Amy!"

Before I could fumble around hopelessly trying to find her, the lights came back – _different_ lights.

In front of us was a massive screen, lots of computers and a desk. And at that desk, stooped over a monitor, right where he'd been hours earlier, was the Doctor.

He grinned, his boyish looks and fop of dangling hair making him look all of fifteen rather than his nine-hundred or so years. "I was hoping one of you would understand."

Amy was clearly shaken. She had not, for once, figured out what was going on quicker than I had. Then again, she hadn't been privy to the fake Doctor in the tunnel routine.

The Doctor – the _real_ Doctor, sat on the edge of his desk and rubbed his hands together. "You two have been part of a very nasty experiment."

"Yeah," Amy drawled. "I think we figured that one out on our own. But you were there too."

"Ah no," the Doctor shook his head. "I was never with you. The Aurix can't use a Time Lord in any of its little games."

"Then who..?"

"I'm afraid your companion was a trick of the mind the Aurix uses a lot. It likes to fool its test subjects by giving them an impossible task to get out of." He looked at me then. "It let you think I was there and then put you in a situation were you had to leave me behind or risk losing Amy."

"If I'd left Amy, I'd be a bad husband and a coward, if I'd left you, I'd be a bad friend and a coward. Catch 22, end of test, Aurix wins." I agreed.

The Doctor nodded. "Luckily after a couple of hours tinkering I was able to get inside the Aurix's control matrix just enough to project an image of my own and give you a few hints in the right direction."

I couldn't resist a smile. "A Doctor with no name, British accent, looks impossibly like a character off the telly and just happens to know Gallifreyan physiology right when I need an expert. Even I could spot something was off." I folded my arms smugly. "Besides, half the places and planets he mentioned where places we've visited with you. And well, to be honest, something had felt wrong about the whole situation for awhile."

Amy punched me, tossing her fiery hair in annoyance. "Oy, will you two just start at the beginning and explain all this?"

"I'll explain," the Doctor offered, "but can I suggest we do it on the move. We may have beat the Aurix in one little showdown, but we've far from defeated it." He swirled his sonic, pointed it at the door and jumped lithely off into a jog.

"Sounds good." I agreed. "As long as someone can remember the way back to the TARDIS."

…

As we swiftly moved back towards the Doctor's police box I found it hard to even keep my breath, let alone talk, but our favourite Time Lord was hardly giving us chance for too many questions anyway.

He began at the beginning, which is always a good place to start, let's face it. But what he had to tell us pained him dearly, I could see that much.

His normally playful eyes grew dull with remorse and what appeared to be an all-consuming guilt as if every disaster in the great cosmos was burdened on his shoulders alone.

"The Aurix hasn't always been a weapon," he explained, hopping over a cover plate on the floor as if it contained explosives – but then maybe it did. "A very, very long time ago, the Aurix was a simple survey machine, sent out across the universe to analyze different cultures. It was meant to watch, to record, but never to harm."

"So it malfunctioned?" Amy queried.

His eyes grew even sadder, which I hadn't thought possible. "Actually no, it didn't go wrong, it was reprogrammed – a thing of innocence turned into a killing machine by a planet gone mad." He paused and tutted as the exit to the building refused to open then began working on it with his sonic.

"If they made it, then maybe they can tell us how to stop it?" I knew it was a long shot – if they were a bunch of madmen, it wasn't likely they'd be giving out blueprints of their favourite weapon, but hey, I was trying to be an optimist.

The Doctor sighed then rubbed his temple. "Even if they wanted to, they can't. The Aurix was a Time Lord weapon, invented out of desperation during the last days of the great time war. I had thought every copy of the Aurix had died with them, but obviously, I was wrong."

Amy was gobsmacked, and I was pretty surprised myself. "I thought…I thought your people were a peaceful lot."

He went into what looked like a semi-trance. His eyes remained focused, but his mind was far, far away on a world long gone. "Once," he eventually agreed. "But the Daleks changed all that. In the end, most of the Time Lords would have done anything to defeat them and this is the result. Ever wonder about the Marie Celeste, Roanoke or exactly where the Aztecs went?"

My throat was dry. It was inconceivable and yet I knew it was true. "Why?" Was all I could ask.

The Doctor was now fiddling with a bunch of sparking wires in the door panel, but he carried on with his narrative as if he could multi-task a thousand different jobs at once.

"The Aurix was a Time Lord weapon to grade the species of the Universe. That's why it couldn't take me as part of the experiment. Creators exempt, or something like that. Anyway, after the Daleks attacked, certain members of the Time Council wanted to test every other life form they could for possible warlike or immoral tendencies – any that failed the test were eradicated by a "time virus" that effectively removes a species from existence. Any buildings and structures left behind, like here, are merely after images that will eventually fade from reality. Some take years, other just hours, but they all vanish in the end along with any records of them. Take that pamphlet you had, Pond. It will just cease to exist once Digamma degenerates."

"My God." Amy didn't seem to be able to take in that her imaginary friend's race could do such a thing. "It's genocide!"

The Doctor hung his head in shame, even though he'd played no part in inventing the weapon. "I know," he offered sadly. "And that's why we have to stop it happening again and again. We have to destroy the Aurix before it escapes into other planetary computer systems and spreads."

"Can we do that?" I asked, not feeling very confident.

"_A-ha!"_ The Doctor grinned, held up a small chip he'd removed from the panel and then pushed the emergency exit button. "Now we can," he said as the door swished open.

Amy hopped over the entrance frame out into a very different world than when we'd arrived. It was night now, and so much colder without the heat from the suns.

Two small moons hovered above us, burning with a white effervescence like they were freezing from a plethora of weird heavenly gases.

Even the buildings and structures looked much colder.

Was this world already waning, like an old tin type wearing away?

The strange atmosphere spurred us all on, and even the Doctor didn't seem to want to spend more time than necessary out on the surface.

We could see the TARDIS ahead where we'd parked her, and it appeared that a thin film of ice had covered her whole surface, making the small ship look like it had been festively decorated.

Eventually, I dared to speak and break the awkward silence that had fallen. "You think it's going to come after us again, don't you?" I asked, realizing I was slipping on actual patches of frost as I jogged along. "Even though we passed the test."

The Doctor stopped ahead of us, looking around like he was a pack dog taking scent. He's pretty good with smells and stuff, I can tell you.

"_You_ passed the test, humanity as a whole may not have…Anyway, it's not you it wants now. It's me. Maybe it was me all along." He looked old as he spoke, like nine centuries of adventures had finally caught up with him. "The Aurix has grown, become self-aware to the point were it wants to kill its creators. And since I'm the only Time Lord left, I suppose that has to be me."

Amy nodded. "Hence the joke about regeneration and dead Time Lords?"

"Something like that," the Doctor admitted.

"But we can stop it, right?" Me being the optimist again.

"Maybe, but it isn't going to be easy. It knows our weaknesses and is already exploiting them. Think about it, Rory. It killed Missy and then the copy of me because it knows you're a nurse, you live to save lives, and it was taking that option away from you. It's a master manipulator, just like its creators."

We started to walk again, following the Doctor's lead. Whatever he'd sensed, he wanted to put as short a distance as possible between us and the TARDIS. Of course, he didn't say as much, but sometimes, just sometimes I can read him.

"Wait," Amy looked almost excited. "So if the Doctor with us wasn't real, does that mean Missy wasn't real or that maybe she's still alive in the complex somewhere, like you were?"

"I don't know," the Doctor admitted, frowning at the frost on his time ship. "The Aurix definitely took live subjects for the test. But even when I was inside the programming, I couldn't tell where they were, or if they were alive. The Aurix is growing stronger. Let's face it, it's had plenty of time in hibernation somewhere to mutate, turn from a simple programmable weapon to a life form in itself."

I began to share my wife's excitement. Maybe I hadn't watched a little girl die in a corridor. Maybe she'd just been an image in a matrix, placed to control me.

Or at the very least, maybe Missy was still wandering the corridors of the complex, needing to be saved.

"We have to go back." I turned to look at the crumbling building. "We have to be sure we haven't left anyone behind in there."

A strange noise began to warble from the TARDIS, so faint at first I didn't even notice it. It was like background noise.

"I know," the Doctor admitted. "But first we have to save ourselves."

Suddenly the noise grew louder and I realized it was a bell gonging constantly.

"I've heard that before." Amy squirmed. "That's bad isn't it?"

The Doctor reached out and let his fingertips get close to the TARDIS. They seemed to skim an invisible barrier that sparked and hissed at his touch. "Enough volts to fry even me if I push too hard," he explained. "Looks like the Aurix just upped its game."

Amy frowned. "I thought you said Time Lords were exempt from its control?"

""Were" being the operative word, Pond. And what's more, I don't think its little joke was just a joke…"

My mobile began to ring and I felt suddenly foolish. I mean, who could be calling me the other side the universe – and before you say it, no, it wasn't my mum!

I slid a hand to my pocket and pulled out the phone. Where the caller information usually resided was a message, but with no incoming number.

**Sample species: Humanoid, sub-category ****Gallifreyan.**

**Aurix classification: 461288**

**Sample size: 1/1**

**Control species: Homo Sapien**

**Negative responses to date: **

**Negative species response code: 288Y**

Underneath, another message scrolled from left to right, over and over again.

**What do you call a Time Lord who can't regenerate?**

I passed the phone over to the Doctor, but the new communication wasn't hard to understand. "You're its next target, aren't you?"

Amy snatched the phone and read the bold lettering. "Oh no…tell me this doesn't mean…"

To his credit, the Doctor simply nodded as if the note was from an old friend. "It means the Aurix has calculated a way to inhibit the effects of the time vortex on my cells, rendering me incapable of regenerating while I'm on Digamma 66."

"I swallowed. "Which means it has no intention of letting you live."

He nodded and smiled.

Actually smiled.

"True," he agreed. "But at least I'll have seen where they build the Flavius Four before I go out! And what about those multiple suns and frozen moons? Can't deny how really cool they are!"

Sometimes I'm sure he's plain bonkers.

Or maybe, just maybe, he does really feel fear, just like the rest of us, and that zany façade is the wall he puts up as defence.

For us to have a chance in hell, I was hoping it was the former.


	5. Chapter 5

**Part Five **

"Can we just forget the suns, moons and stupid space ships for a second?" Amy was pouting and her freckles were standing out like she was flushed with temper – which of course she was.

"Well, we _can_ forget them, but they won't go away. At least, not unless we wait long enough for the planet to actually fade from existence now it's had a dose of time virus…"

I coughed. "Doctor, I think she means can we just focus on the important stuff. Like staying alive?"

"Yes, well, alive is always good," he agreed, eyes darting all around us suspiciously. "Although I once knew a Tibetan monk who swore the afterlife was like one of Hugh Hefner's parties."

"How on earth did he know?" I scowled.

"I heard he was once married to a bunny girl…bit strange that. Sounds like the title of a weird novel. _The Monk and the Bunny girl_. Very un-cool." As he talked the Doctor was spinning around, assessing every last detail of our situation.

My brow furrowed. "Actually, I meant how did he know what the afterlife was like?"

"Ah, never got to ask him that one. He got eaten by the Abominable Snowman before we could have a proper conversation."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, everyone knows the Yeti is just a fairy tale."

The Doctor's head cocked to one side, but he looked very serious. "Well, either that or it was the Dalai Lama in drag." He leaned close to Amy, pale eyes darting. "And you of all people should know that fairy tales are the scariest of all…"

Amy gulped, and I felt the pang of unease for her.

Of course, the Doctor was right. But it didn't help our situation any.

"So now what?" I asked. "We can't just stand here."

The Time Lord spun around on the spot, arms outstretched. "We're not _just_ standing here," he clarified. "We're thinking. And thinking in situations like this is our greatest asset." He scratched at his head. "Or, it's a waste of perfectly valuable time when we could be panicking instead."

"Panicking sounds good, considering," I suggested, only half-jokingly. "Or we could go back into the factory and look for other survivors, or test subjects, or whatever we really were."

Amy nodded and I could sense her frustration. "Now that sounds like a plan. Anything is better than just _waiting_."

The Doctor sighed as if going back in had been inevitable anyway. "Right then, back into the factory it is." He rubbed his hands together as if the mind games we were about to play were actually fun things. "And I'm betting we're headed right for the airlock and the tunnels behind it…"

He wasn't wrong.

I wanted desperately to go back into the belly of the beast and find those tunnels empty. I wanted the walls and ceiling to be intact, and the body of a certain little innocent girl to be missing.

The Aurix might feel the need to exterminate every species it encountered out of some misplaced programming that made us all seem immoral, selfish, killers, but the only real murderer in the house was itself.

I'm a believer in saving lives, not taking them, and I know those sentiments stand for the Doctor and Amy too. And before you say it, yes, I know the Doctor's past is a jaded one with things he isn't proud of, but that was a lifetime and then some ago.

Maybe that's why this Aurix hated us so much? Out of all it had encountered, maybe we were so much its opposite, so much for life, for the future, that it had to prove deep down we were really bad, or it wouldn't have a purpose?

Or, there is the other option that it's a stark raving mad piece of kit that doesn't know how to do anything but kill – it doesn't need to rationalize, or care.

Now _that_ really is scary monster stuff.

Even scarier than working for an NHS trust unit and having Amy Pond as a wife!

…

Getting back into the now very cold factory was far too easy, and I think we all sensed that the Aurix was just letting us into its trap. Sometimes, though, you just can't help yourself, even though you know you're walking into trouble.

As we reached the airlock, I held my breath, praying the other side was empty.

But it wasn't.

The exact same bodies littered the floor, just the way they had before.

Now, they looked paler than ever as the drop in temperature began to chill the cadavers.

I saw Amy shiver, and knew it wasn't because of the lost souls, but because the air around us was becoming almost frigid.

I remember seeing a film called _The Langoliers_ a few years back about how the past simply gets erased, eaten away as we pass into the present and future, and how stupid it had seemed when I was watching it.

Now, I couldn't get Stephen King's image of little creatures gnawing away at the very fabric around me out of my head.

"This doesn't look good," Amy sighed. "That thing has just led us back in here for the slaughter."

The Doctor tapped his sonic to his lips. "In all fairness, we didn't have to come. We had a lovely view of those moons from that spot by the launch pad out there. Could have opted for a picnic even." He smiled then. "But where's the fun in that, eh?"

I cleared my throat, and I think everyone knew where I wanted, no _needed_ to go next. Guilt was eating away at me about Missy – had been ever since I'd left her in that tunnel.

But then, how must the Doctor feel after living through centuries of having to do the same? Sometimes, you can't save everyone. That's what my training told me.

But my heart disagreed, and always would. I suppose that was the gut reaction that made me become a nurse in the first place.

Amy knew how I felt, and some of the sass she normally oozed had been subdued on my account. She squeezed my hand, and we entered the tunnel together through the fizzly-out-wall door or what ever you can call it.

The Doctor was behind us but far enough for Amy to dare to whisper a question to me. "Are you sure it's really him this time?"

It seemed like a stupid question, but we'd been fooled by gangers, and now the Aurix, so could we really be certain?

And yet I was.

The first time around everything had felt wrong._ He_ had felt wrong. It had been the Doctor, but with his heart, his curious, caring soul torn out.

Oh, and he wasn't cheeky enough, either.

"What do you mean is he sure it's _me_ this time? Who else would I be? I'm _always_ me – well unless you count the time I actually turned into a school teacher named John Smith, but that was all the Family of Blood's fault…and that was another me anyway." He continued to blather as we approached the almost hidden passage to the antechamber.

And somehow I suspect it was to try and keep my mind off the inevitable more than it was his ego spouting about past lifetimes.

We reached the section of tunnel where the ceiling had caved in, and the metal plating had been swinging above my head.

The Doctor pointed his glowing sonic above us like a torch to check if anything had changed in reality.

My heart sank.

The metal was still hanging like a static trapeze and the cold rock plateau beyond it was again visible where the explosion had torn away both man-made and natural substances with its hellish storm.

The Doctor put a hand on my shoulder, but he didn't say anything.

I nodded, acknowledging his empathy and carried on down the tunnel to a vague light point that signalled the end of our journey.

_Nothing__'s changed,_ my mind screamed. _You still can't save her. You can't save anyone. You're nobody special, what made you think any differently..?_

As we grew closer, I could smell the damp debris and feel the dust settling on the back of my throat. I wanted to cough to stop the tickling, but it felt wrong. Like I was already desecrating a grave site.

The Doctor must have sensed my feelings and somehow managed to push his bony body past me in the confines of the tunnel and take point. He was the leader now, searching out life signs with his sonic.

I saw him step into the chamber, and was numb as I followed him into the carnage. By the wall a body was half-buried under rubble and I blinked not wanting or daring to look closely.

This was what had been Missy's final resting place.

The Doctor could close off his emotions better than me, and stepped quickly over to the tangle of limbs enveloped in metal and stone. His screwdriver burbled as he wafted it over the body.

"Been dead a awhile I'd say." Then he looked at me. "It's Charleston. Seems like in the real version of events he didn't escape his own explosion."

Amy stood in the tunnel mouth, watching, her arms folded. "Yeah, well if you ask me he got what he deserved."

My mind took in the information overload. "If he's dead, then what about Missy?"

I spun around, eyes scanning the rest of the wreckage for the little girl, and I could see the Doctor and Amy doing much the same.

"Over here!" The Doctor's sonic had changed from a low warble to a more high-pitched scream. "Someone's alive…"

I dived at the pile of metal and stone he was pointing at and began to dig, to tear at the rubble with my hands, not caring if I was cut.

He joined me. "Steady on old chap," he warned. "Or you might do more harm than good."

I slowed a little, knowing he was right, but then small, youthful fingers came into view as I moved a section of steel, and I was frantic again.

In my heart, the fear and despondency were as bad as if this were my own daughter.

Between the three of us, we eventually revealed Missy from her premature grave and she groaned as if we'd awakened her from a deathly slumber.

My training kicked in again then and I began to gently probe her small form for injuries. She moaned and I had to resist the urge to draw back.

The most obvious damage was a compound fracture to her leg – a garish segment of her fibula bone poking evilly through her flesh – but even this would heal, given time.

There were broken ribs too, and that worried me because if we moved her they could do more damage.

But move her we must.

"It's alright, Missy," I whispered tenderly. "You're safe now. I'm Rory, and these are my friends Amy and the Doctor."

She nodded, but I don't think she was taking much in at that point. "I'm cold." She said softly. "Momma must have forgot to light the fire-"

It was a repeat of her words earlier, but this time I was determined for the scene not to play out the same way.

"I know, but we'll be warm soon." As I spoke, the Doctor took off his tweed jacket and offered it up, and I wrapped the girl in it. I looked at him. "We need to immobilize the leg and then get her somewhere safe." _If there is anywhere safe,_ my brain crooned.

"How about a medical bay?" Amy offered. "Even though this isn't a human colony they'd have to have something of use, right?"

"Right," I snapped perhaps a little too sharply as I worked on the kid. "If we actually knew where there was one."

Amy pulled a face as if I hadn't been very attentive in class and then jerked a thumb back towards the airlock. "There's one back the way we came. We just need to take a right instead of a left after exiting the airlock room."

"What, you have a map suddenly?"

She huffed, and I deserved it. "No smartypants, but there's a sign on the wall with a green cross and a caduceus so I'm guessing there's some kind of first aid station that way…"

The Doctor seemed impressed with Amy's deduction, but couldn't resist a little lecture. "Actually, the caduceus really isn't a medical symbol at all. It was the magical staff of Hermes**. **The correct symbol should be The Staff of Asclepius – an ancient Greek physician deified as the god of medicine." He saw me grimace with annoyance and stopped. "But anyway, you're right, we should go that way."

He moved to help me pick Missy up, but I waved him off, cautiously rolling her into my arms. "I'm worried about the broken ribs causing problems," I explained, carefully moving to a standing position so as not to jostle her.

The Doctor nodded knowingly and let his sonic slowly waft over the girl. Her eyes were closed and her head was snuggled beneath my chin, but ever few seconds she would shiver and then suck down a deep breath, followed by a whimper.

"Lungs both intact and no internal bleeding either," he assured me. "Let's keep it that way, eh?" And with that he was taking point again back in the direction we had come, oblivious that he was still being stalked by the Aurix.

Despite everything that was going on a couldn't help a small smile. The skinny, brace-wearing Time Lord was always quick to point out that he wasn't "that kind of Doctor" and yet I was sure he knew more about medicine than every surgeon on earth put together.

Then again, I was sure he knew more about _everything_ than the human race could ever hope to aspire to.

Perhaps, though, in a way, that was his bane.

…

After awhile of trundling through the gloom, Amy joined me as we moved back towards the airlock. She still looked solemn, and I could tell she felt the same trepidation as I did.

We may be saving Missy this time, but it was far from over. In fact, I knew with a sudden sense of dread that this second test had only just begun.

As the very thought left my mind, Missy started to cough, as if the Aurix had heard me and wanted to play its next card.

And like the Doctor, I'm not very good at poker.

The hacking grew worse until I was forced to stop walking and desperately tried to calm her.

When that didn't work, I tried the nest best thing. "Doctor!"

Why is it everyone calls his name in times of crisis like he's the saviour of all? But let's face it, we do.

"Maybe I held her too tight, or walked too fast or…" Yes, I was panicking. I know it's not a trait a fully trained nurse should have, but these were hardly normal circumstances and my brain was screaming at me that if anything happened to Missy this time, it would be my fault.

Within a second, the now "Un-tweeded one" was at my side, those ancient eyes flitting over the girl like he had x-ray vision. Then to my surprise he pulled a stethoscope from his pocket like it had always been there.

I know he says those pockets are deep, but_ really_?

"Borrowed this from a previous incarnation," he offered almost cryptically and then sounded Missy's chest like he knew exactly what he was doing. With two wafts of the sonic for good measure he looked at me a second later and informed, "No pneumothorax, just asthma."

It took me a moment to actually digest. Missy must have had it all her life and the stress from her injuries had brought on an attack. That didn't actually make things any better, though, and in her era people didn't actually walk around with Ventolin in their purses, either.

"_Just_ asthma," I barked. "Well unless you have an inhaler stuffed in your pocket with that stethoscope, it doesn't exactly make things any better!"

To his credit, he didn't take offence at my tone. Nope, he actually stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and had a good sift around.

"Err no," he finally admitted somewhat sheepishly. "But there should still be something at the infirmary, or sick bay or whatever…"

Missy hacked in agreeance and I picked up the pace again until I was almost as breathless as she was.

We passed Amy's sign a few seconds later and I was thankful my wife had a good memory along with everything else.

Once inside the compact little bay I was less confident. Everything was marked and labelled, but not in English, and whatever the Aurix had done to the TARDIS, it was stopping the translation system from working.

I gently propped Missy up on the bed and couldn't help but notice how laboured her breathing had become. Her airways were closing, suffocating her and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

The bed seemed to have some in-built monitoring device and small screen which appeared to agree with me. Had we made it this far only to be tortured again? It would certainly fit the Aurix M.O.

Was this even the real Missy, or another illusion?

I couldn't risk believing that, though. "Amy, try and keep her calm while I look around for something, _any_thing…"

The Doctor had already vanished into a small, neatly stocked storeroom and was tossing medical packs over his shoulder every few seconds. Apparently, he didn't need any translation device to read Digamese, or whatever the local lingo was actually called.

"We're running out of time," I growled as I came up behind him. And then more quietly. "Did you find anything? There must be something that would act as a bronchodilator even if that's not what it was meant for."

"Nothing," the Time Lord admitted. "Apparently the prolific species here don't suffer from chest conditions." He threw another pack. "Probably because they don't actually have lungs to begin with…"

I ran my hands through my hair and screwed my eyes shut, trying to think, to pull some piece of magic out of thin air, or rather my skull, to help the little girl. But nothing came.

I slammed a hand against the wall so hard I thought I'd actually broken a few bones.

When I turned back and opened my eyes, the Doctor had vanished back out into the medical bay.

I followed to find him sitting with Missy, talking to her – _just _talking.

While he spoke, his voice so soft and low it was almost inaudible, he held a hand either side her head, his fingertips barely touching her skin.

The Doctor's eyes were closed, and I could tell he was concentrating on whatever he was doing.

_Vulcan mindmeld, yeah, he's been watching too much bloody telly…._

And yet whatever he _was _doing seemed to be working.

The more he spoke, no soothed, the easier Missy's breaths came, until she wasn't coughing, wheezing, or fighting for air.

I gaped, actually, I'll be honest, I _gawked._

And as I gawked, I realized the Time Lord's expression had changed into one I'd never seen before, and I doubt Amy has either.

I was seeing the face of a father, a man who had loved and cared for his offspring and knew just the right words to console, to comfort to protect.

The Doctor is normally so all-knowing, like a wise alien owl that I'd never seen him as ever being a family man before.

Eventually, Missy totally relaxed, her small body crumbling back on the bed and her eyes closing peacefully in sleep.

He let go of her then and pulled his jacket over her like he was tucking her into bed for the night.

"We should um…I mean…" I realized I was totally at a loss for words. "I mean that was just…well, totally like something out of _The Mentalist_."

"Patrick Jane better watch his ratings," Amy snickered.

"Ah yes, the program about the master manipulator," the Doctor nodded. "Never saw it myself. Out of all those inter-stellar networks they had to put it on at the same time as _By the Light of the Asteroid._ I mean, I couldn't miss what was happening to Joofy Crystal now could I!"

"I grimaced. "_You_ watch _Soaps_?" The brightest, most intelligent being in the universe and he never ceased to shock and amaze me.

He saw my expression and straightened his bowtie as if it somehow made him look more intelligent after his viewing habit confession. "Do what we can for her leg," he prompted. "And then we better figure out what comes next. "This has all been too easy. Far too easy."

"Err, Doctor?" Amy was staring at the monitor on Missy's bed.

The screen had changed from the little girl's vital signs to a cube of text that flashed in time with the kid's heartbeat. It was a taunt, and from what it read, not a very nice one.

**Sample species: Humanoid, sub-category Homo sapiens.**

**Aurix classification: 461626**

**Sample size: 10/10**

**Control species: Gallifreyan**

**Negative responses to date: 8/10 **

**Negative species response code: 288Y**

**Negative species response code 288Y**** ACCEPTED: Total species eradication by cancellation of genus specific timeline****. **

"What does it mean?" Amy was asking, but I reckon she already knew exactly what it meant.

The Aurix had let us save Missy, only to tell us that the human race had failed its stupid test anyway.

The Doctor agreed. "It's telling us even though you and Rory beat it, the other test subjects didn't. Eight out of ten negatives is good enough for it to consider victory."

"So we all die? Are you kidding me?"

The Doctor sighed. "No." He let's his eyes play all around the room as if searching for some hidden voyeur – but then, there was one. "What do you want?" He asked.

The screen blinked once and then changed again.

**Sample species: Humanoid, sub-category ****Gallifreyan.**

**Aurix classification: 461288**

**Sample size: 1/1**

**Control species: Homo Sapien**

**Negative responses to date: **

**Negative species response code: 288Y**

**I WANT TO WIN**

It was the first time the Aurix had spoken as if it was a sentient life force, but it didn't make anything any better.

"By win, you mean my death?" The Doctor asked calmly.

**Total species eradication by ****cancellation of genus specific timeline****.**

"Ah, but you want more than my death, don't you?" The Doctor began pacing in front of the monitor and kept "pinging" his braces until I was reminded of Bobby Ball. "But what do I get in return for eradicating my own species, hmmn?" He asked.

**Sample species: Humanoid, sub-category Homo sapiens.**

Amy shook her head. "I can't believe this is happening. It's actually asking you to die to save us, I mean, humans?"

The Doctor grinned. "In a word, Pond, yes! But you're totally worth saving, trust me!"

I looked down, not able to face him. Were we really worth his death? After seeing the likes of Charleston, I wasn't really sure we were. "By dying for us?" I asked dolefully.

"Put it this way," The Doctor clarified. "I really can't win anymore than you could. If I give my life for humanity then I win the test and prove what a nice chap I am, but if I won't play Kamikaze, then I'm deemed an unfit species to live an am eradicated anyway."

"Your people created this thing. You must know a way to control it. You know everything!" Amy was clutching at straws, while the Time Lord seemed to have accepted his fate without question.

Maybe he had a plan, or maybe we were back to the stark raving bonkers thing again.

The screen began to make a beeping noise like when you've received an e-mail on your home computer. We all looked at it to see what came next.

A schematic of the nearby airlock had appeared along with information on a recently programmed simulation.

**Re-entry test protocol accepted**

**Chamber will initiate simulation in five minutes and counting…**

**Sample re-entry atmosphere: Earth**

Amy shook her head, hands on hips once again. "Now what?"

"Well, it's not like I can just shoot myself, I don't have a gun. There's no water here to drown in and I don't see either of you throttling me anytime soon, soooo…"

"So you're saying it wants to burn you up?"

He smiled again, and I could have punched him. What was so dang funny?

"It's poetic, really," he explained. "Dying in the atmosphere of the people's planet you're saving. And besides, it knows us Time Lord's are a resilient lot. We created it, it knows our weaknesses."

Amy was close to tears I could tell, and that's unusual for her. "I won't let you…"

"One man against a whole species? C'mon Pond, even you can do the math on that one." He looked down at his shirt and tie. "Hmmn, how do I look?" He asked me.

"Errr…" What do you say to someone who is about to walk into a firestorm for you and the rest of mankind? "Is there no way you can..?"

"Live?" He shook his head. "The vacuum of space, solar radiation, simulated velocity of about 8km a second and then a superheated shroud of incandescent plasma about 1,600c – not even a Time Lord stands any chance " He clasped his hands together. "Might be an interesting and informative experience for about two seconds, though!"


	6. Chapter 6

**Part Six **

"We beat it once before. You just need more time to think." Amy was more than clutching at straws and she knew it.

"Time is something for once I don't have." The Doctor looked at the clock counting down on the monitor. "Let's go see my new playpen, shall we?"

As he walked over to the door and down the corridor towards the airlock, he didn't seem like a man who was about to die. He didn't seem anything. He was so calm he could have been taking a stroll down to the local chippy for a fish and mix.

If I was in his position I couldn't have been that composed.

Still, we followed him down to the airlock door, both expecting the Gallifreyan to come up with some amazing plan at the last minute. It's what he does, after all.

But not this time.

Another screen flashed into life as we entered the airlock, announcing that he had one minute, fifty-two seconds left to live.

The Doctor looked at it absently, then keyed in something on a nearby console to open the inner and outer doors.

Apparently, he wanted to take a peek at the chamber that was to be his crematorium, and the Aurix let him.

He strolled inside, looking around as if he were about to purchase the place. "Oh, this is cool, don't you think, Pond?"

Amy was struggling to hold it together. "No, no I don't think it is, actually."

"Oh come on! Just look at the size of those fans, and that duel core heater matrix for synthesizing the heat from the plasma. It's glorious!"

"One minute to initiation of program." The computer helpfully announced.

The Doctor turned at the voice and looked at me and Amy. There was a sadness in his eyes I'll never forget. "You two should go now. The computer will auto-lock the door at thirty seconds."

"We're not going." Amy defied. "We're staying right here and showing that thing what humans think of their friends."

He shook his head and smiled wanly. "Not a bad plan, but that's not how the Aurix works, and you know it. If it played fair in a fight we wouldn't even be here. Now go. Do this one last thing for me."

I nodded at him and took Amy's hand, somehow guiding her against her will out of the chamber and through the airlock doors. They hissed closed behind us and we both dared to look through the treble-thickness panes to see our friend one last time.

The Doctor's goofy grin was staring right back at us and he waved – actually waved. Then as we heard the programmed kick in, I swear I heard a warlike cry of "Geronimo!" from within the room beyond, but I couldn't bring myself to look at what was happening.

I grabbed Amy, pulling her close to me in a bear hug for what seemed like forever.

Something hissed and then clonked behind us and we both realized at the same time that somehow the test sequence was shutting down.

Was it over that quickly?

Amy reacted first, diving to the controls to pull up how long the program had run.

"Less than two seconds. It was running for _less_ than two seconds…that might mean…"

I stood with my mouth open wondering how two seconds could actually feel like an eternity. But it had.

I slapped the emergency door lock override and together me and Amy bound into the test area without thinking it might be dangerous. The inner atmosphere had vented, though, leaving the interior feeling like a sauna.

The Doctor was lying dead center of the chamber, his face to the super dense flooring.

"Doctor!" Amy hit superspeed first, yelling his name all the way as we crossed the large flat area to his side.

For a second, I tried to pull her back as she kneeled beside him. What if she flipped his gangly body over to reveal horrific burns and more from the effects of the re-entry program? And besides, shouldn't I, the medically trained one be checking him over anyway?

Amy's headstrong and fearless, though, as most of you know, so she shrugged me off and gently rolled him anyway.

The Doctor groaned. "Hmm, I smell barbecue. No, wait. I _was_ the barbecue!"

His skin looked slightly mottled and red in places, like he'd suffered some first degree burns, but apart from that, he looked amazingly well, considering.

Well, unless you count the fact that some of his clothing was a little charred. (How a Time Lord lived through what he had was unbelievable, but apparently Time Lord clothes were made of just as sturdy stuff!)

The Doctor noticed what I was staring at and pulled himself into a sitting position.

"You might want to take it a little slowly." I offered, but he waved me off.

"Why were you staring at my tie?" He looked down, but couldn't see quite enough of the bow to be sure. "It's burned, isn't it? Awww…my cool tie is now a fried tie!"

"Pity it wasn't the fez," I said under my breath.

He scowled.

Damn, I never will remember Time Lord hearing is about ten times better than my own.

Amy looked at us both with a frown. "When you've both finished squabbling and talking wardrobe?"

"Yes?" The Doctor and I answered together.

"Maybe you can tell us how you beat the Aurix?" She looked pointedly at the singed Gallifreyan.

He blinked, then appeared genuinely puzzled. "_Me?"_ He asked incredulous. "I was sure it was you that had saved my pork, or bacon, or-"

It was time for us all to sit for a moment in wonder.

Just what or who had shutdown the re-entry program and cut off the Aurix's control?

A small panel set in the wall beeped and a screen about ten inches wide suddenly illuminated to show a very familiar face.

"Just because I live in a library now, sweetie, it doesn't mean I can't come out and play once in awhile." River smiled roguishly the other end of the comm link and we all heaved a sigh of relief.

Maybe it really was over.

"River Song!" The Doctor was first up and pacing in front of the screen before we could stop him. "Just how did you neutralize the Aurix?" he was demanding. "Even I couldn't neutralize it, and it was my lot that created it!"

He glanced down at the blackened tie and looked like a hurt puppy.

River beamed and then winked. "Oh you know, from one computer to another and all that."

Amy popped her head over the Doctor's shoulder. "What does she mean, lives in a library now and from one computer to another?"

The Time Lord ignored the question, but River's face softened. "Spoilers, dear, spoilers. You'll find out one day."

Amy looked annoyed but didn't push it. She knew better than to ruffle the professor's feathers. Well, basically, because you can't ruffle them. She's a pretty cool customer.

I think it's all in the parenting myself…

"So," the Doctor pondered. "You must have up-linked the library interface to the Digamma mainframe, bypassing all security protocols and attacking the Aurix matrix on its own terms_ inside_ the system." He grinned. "I like it…it's like _Tron_ on steroids"

River looked over her shoulder, and I could just see other faces in the background, although no one I recognized. "Well I do have a few friends here back in the library. Miss Evangelista and the others have been most helpful."

"So is it gone?" I looked at the screen as I asked the question, then to the Time Lord. "I mean,_ really_ gone?"

He looked back at the professor. "Well?" He asked "Is it?"

River shrugged. "As gone as a binary based life form can be."

"Of course," the Doctor agreed. "Aurix versus River Song – the poor Aurix never stood a chance." He smiled again, but this time there was a sadness to it, a melancholy root buried deep down that only he understood. "It's nice to see you again River," he said softly.

"You too, sweetie." She returned the same sad smile. "Now go. Digamma 66 is still degenerating. The time eradication program is irreversible, you might not have long before the planet vanishes."

The Doctor stared at her like he was lost in the moment. "I know," he said quietly, no _sadly. _

River pulled out a small blue book that looked strangely like the TARDIS – her journal. "Remember the caves of Inchiny?" She watched for the Doctor's reaction.

"Errr…no."

River grinned. "You soon will. And it will be _glorious._ Now_ go_. I'll destroy the Digamma computer cores from this end, just to be sure. See you soon, pretty boy."

Before he could say more, the professor cut the feed.

"Just what was that all about?" Amy barked.

Amy is no fool, and neither am I. The Doctor's conversation with River had been off somehow, like they were both hiding something, and we both knew it.

And no, I don't mean I suspected another Aurix trick, but something else.

"Why isn't River in Stormcage?" I frowned. Sometimes I don't even get time travel and dimensions, I swear. And well, River's timeline is pretty screwy anyway.

The Doctor's cheerless expression didn't change. "Let's just say she's in another kind of prison now. A much more secure one." He clicked his fingers. "Come on! You heard what River said, we have to leave this place, chop chop before it disappears from under us! Or maybe over us."

And with that he was jogging through the airlock and beyond, leaving a trail of charred tweed fragments in his wake.

I took Amy's hand and we followed, knowing there would be no more explanation on the weird comm conversation with our daughter, no matter how much we pushed.

...

I never thought the TARDIS would feel so much like home. A wooden blue box with a slightly cold-looking interior and weird gizmos everywhere to boot.

And yet today, I felt like I had been born inside the thing, it was so inviting. Mind you, I think it "knows" things, so maybe it sensed my fears and tried to calm me.

Actually, after the previous incident in the bubble universe I should probably call it "she" but that's another story you don't want me blathering about in the middle of this one!

Okay, so where was I?

Right, back in the TARDIS.

Amy had helpfully gone to make us all a cuppa after the Doctor announced the free radicals would do all our synapses the world of good.

While the PG was brewing and the Time Lord was pushing buttons that looked like they belonged on a landfill site, I quickly checked on Missy.

She was sleeping peacefully on a folding bed the Doctor had pulled from the time ship's many rooms like plucking a rabbit out of a hat.

"The leg's healing perfectly well, you know?" The Doctor had slinked up behind me and was now peering over my shoulder at the girl.

As soon as we'd boarded the TARDIS he'd come up with some rather nifty toys for melding tissue and bone back to their former state, and I wasn't about to argue where they'd come from.

Anything that cures the sick and saves lives has got to be good in my book, no matter which planet or time zone it appeared from.

"But you can't cure her asthma." I watched the little girl breath. "And what's to say another foreman won't come along and beat her just like Charleston?"

"Technically I know a few places that could easily cure her asthma." The Doctor sighed. "But it would be meddling with the past, corrupting time lines, altering a fixed point in the grand scheme of the universe." He looked at me. "I know you don't want me to take her back to 1855, but we could change vital historic events if we play God." He turned his back on me and I thought I heard him whisper something under his breath.

"_Besides, it's not like I haven't tried and look how Bowie Base One turned out…" _

Amy walked into the control room at that point juggling three mugs, but apparently the conversation wasn't lost on her. "Wasn't it you who once told me timelines _can_ be re-written?" She demanded passing us both out teas.

The Doctor looked slightly sheepish. "Well, that was different."

"She's just a kid," I pleaded. "One asthma attack back in '55 could kill her. One more foreman like Charleston working her up and-"

As if to agree with me, Missy groaned in her sleep, her eyes flitting and dancing under their lids like she was frantically trying to escape something.

Her destiny, perhaps?

"Did you know Digamma is the Greek for six?" Amy suddenly offered randomly.

"And this helps Missy how?" I frowned.

"That planet back there's real designation was 666. Talk about destiny for it to be erased from existence or what." Amy plonked down on a console chair cradling her own mug. "I suppose I'm saying sometimes things aren't what they seem._ Destiny_ isn't always what it seems."

My eyes widened slightly. "Bit profound."

"She gets that from me!" The Doctor grinned and absently pulled a new bowtie from his new tweed pocket.

"So can we just not take Missy home? I mean, at least not back to slavery."

The Doctor scowled and began pulling and pushing dials, knobs and err…bells again. "She has to go back to 1855, Rory. I'm sorry, but even I can't change that."

I sighed and turned my back on him, frustrated by the constraints put upon us when we had the chance to actually change something for the better.

Amy felt the same way too. "What kind of a Time Lord are you that could take a little kid back to probably die? Why did you even bother helping to fix her leg."

Ugh oh. Amy was angry, her nostrils were flaring and she was flinging her hair so badly even I didn't want to get in her way.

Husband's prerogative to retreat.

_Obviously. _

The Doctor smirked. "Ooh Amelia Pond, I love you when you're angry. Did I ever tell you that?"

"Probably" Amy snorted.

"Good," he snapped back. "However, no need to raise your blood pressure. I said I was taking Missy back to 1855. What I didn't say was where."

"_Where?"_ Amy and I asked together.

"Rochester, New York," the Doctor clarified as he stomped on some kind of foot pedal control. "Have an old friend there that will look after Missy, trust me."

And of course, we did. The Doctor may have moments when he acts stark raving mad, but you can never say he isn't to be trusted.

(Well, unless he's an Aurix created Doctor, that is).

Twenty minutes later we found ourselves sitting in a rather grand farmhouse being welcomed by a young woman in her mid-thirties. She had a somewhat stern face, and the way her hair was combed back with a bun at the rear made me think of a school mistress.

She seemed to ignore me and Amy after the initial introductions, focusing on the Doctor with a rather curt air. "If it isn't John Smith back to haunt me," she sniffed.

"Oh I wouldn't say haunt," he returned. "More like plague."

"Well, you are infectious, I'll give you that."

Was that an actual joke from this very prim and proper young lady?

"This is my good friend Suzie B," the Doctor offered, taking a biscuit from the platter on the table in front of him. "Hmmn, ginger…did you know I always wanted to be ginger? Never had a ginger version of me yet, though."

"You're sassy enough," the woman smiled and then looked at me and Amy again for the first time in awhile. "I'm Susan – Susan Anthony."

It didn't hit me then, in fact it didn't hit me for a few days if I'm honest, but now that I know exactly who we left Missy with I feel like we actually achieved something from the whole Digamma 66 mess.

You see Susan B Anthony was a rights activist - a campaigner not only for abolition, but for woman's rights and much more.

If there was anyone Missy would be safe with, and cared for, it was Miss Anthony.

Sometimes the Doctor really is a smarty pants, isn't he?

Anyway, we took tea with Susan Anthony while Missy settled into a large and rather comfy looking room on the second floor. We chatted, we laughed, we discussed the future and of change – knowing what changes would come, but not daring to share them with her.

And eventually we left, waving to the activist as we left her behind in a cruel past that had helped carve our more civilized future.

Back in the TARDIS, Amy sighed, and I sensed all the tension drain from her as the time ship began its familiar vrooping noise.

"Did we actually just achieve something?" She asked. "I mean, other than being chased around a condemned planet by a mad computer program?"

"Saving Missy has to be worth something," I suggested, putting my arm around her. "Even if we didn't quite get your perfect alien holiday from your perfect alien holiday brochure."

She squeezed my hand. "Yeah well, maybe we would have been better off with Blackpool after all."

The Doctor disagreed. "Oh come on, people! Blackpool is for boring grannies who want to play bingo! Blackpool is for un-cool people who don't wear bow ties and fez's! Blackpool is…"

"Yeah, but it's _safe_," I countered.

The Doctor's bottom lip quivered and he looked sulky for about two seconds, then grinned again. "Now where's the fun in safe?" he waited for a response, those beady eyes of his darting between me and Amy. Eventually he just rubbed his hands together as if we'd given in. "Right, where to then?"

I feigned deep thought, staring at the TARDIS roof. "Um, I was thinking somewhere with big green slimy aliens, a deadly tar pit and some poisonous marmite truffles."

The Doctor beamed. "Really? I think I know just the planet! Although the truffles aren't poisonous marmite – that would be just plain overkill…"

"Err no, not really, " I laughed. "For once can we go somewhere _normal_? Like maybe Alton Towers?"

"Ah, right! Alton Towers it is then…"

Now obviously, that was just too easy.

I watched him bounce over to the center console and input lots of weird Gallifreyan symbols into the keyboard. Then he looked up at me and winked and I just knew Amy and I were in trouble for the second time in one day.

"Of course, you never said _which_ Alton Towers," the Doctor teased. "The one on Katrika has been besieged for a thousand years, but they have awesome guest quarters if you don't mind the odd battering ram at your bedroom window before breakfast!"

I groaned.

And so, I suppose, the moral of this story is…

_Never_ go on a daytrip with a Time Lord!

_**Epilogue **_

River looked around the fake world her consciousness was saved in and sighed – at least, she thought about sighing and the computer simulated it in a bogus body, in a phoney room, in a false neighbourhood.

And the lie went on.

_Lie_.

Yes, River was good at that.

She'd told the Doctor half the truth, at least.

Yes, she'd up-linked the library with the Digamma 66 computer systems, but she hadn't fought the Aurix there. Even with the help of Charlotte, Dave, Evangelista and all the people "stored" with her, it just wasn't possible.

Her virtual reality army just wasn't big enough.

If the Doctor couldn't defeat the being, what hope had she on its home ground?

The mammoth computer she and the others were stored in, however, now that had the power to eradicate an unwanted guest much more easily.

And what the Doctor didn't know, wouldn't hurt him.

Or anyone else.

River sensed the library computer working, she felt it through the current that linked her to its circuits and boards and memory core.

It was like the picture you can conjure in your head when you're thinking about a past memory – except for River, the images and sounds were fake forever now.

She imagined being in the library and suddenly she was there. That part of the magic always amused her.

A node swivelled and turned to face her as she floated down into the central room with the glass dome. This was her favourite place.

The node remained impassive until she approached it.

_Tell me what I want to hear_, River's mind screamed.

The node smiled. "The Aurix has left the library. The Aurix has left the library. The Aurix has left the library…"

River's mind exhaled with relief and her image simulated the action.

She'd done it.

The library had _done it_.

The Aurix had been exterminated like it had been faced by the whole Dalek empire.

A voice called from somewhere in the library network. "Professor Song?"

It was Charlotte, the little girl who the library had been built for.

They often played chess together – one last thing that wasn't an illusion, their minds locked in battle, playing forever.

River thought about the Doctor, about how he'd changed since they'd last met here.

She thought about Rory and Amy and of a future for them that would be her past.

_Was _her past.

She sighed again and turned in her little virtual world, heading for one of the open areas that looked out on the library planet's surface like a balcony.

Charlotte would be waiting for her there, and in the fake evening light, they would look up at the moon together and play the game.

Because after all, virtual or not, life was always one big game.

"Coming, sweetie," she answered and then began the nanosecond trip through the library's inner matrix to where Charlotte's mind was stored.

In the central chamber, the information node didn't revolve and return dormant. Instead, it remained active, bristling, even.

And eventually, it began to spout new data.

"**The Aurix has left the library. The Aurix has left the library." **

"**The Aurix has been SAVED..." **

The End

**Author's Note**

I have a wee bit of a plot bubbling around in my head for a sequel about the "Alton Towers" trip. If you fancy reading it, let me know, and I shall try once again to put fingers to keyboard! Special thanks to irismay42 for inspiring this story by mentioning my classic car's license plate looked like the name of a Who baddie! :)


End file.
